Gigli

[Natasha (candygirl)]

I have been anxiously waiting for this movie to come out - not because I want to see it, but because I knew the reviews would be hilarious. I thought it would be entertaining to have a thread devoted entirely to the reviews.

Can I also mention that if Ben Whofleck's character is supposed to be an Italian mobster, "Gigli" does not rhyme with "really" - it's been driving me insane!

P.S. Is it wrong that I find these reviews so amusing?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie

Verdict: So bad it verges on the legendary.

"Gigli" makes "Hudson Hawk" look like a hiccup, "Ishtar" like a minor misstep. It’s the stuff "Mystery Science Theater 3000s" are made of.

Before it opened, it was infamous for being the movie that spawned L'Affaire Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck. Now that it’s arrived at the multiplex, it can be judged for what it is: a disaster of spectacular proportions.

Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a lunkheaded mob enforcer with an unpronounceable name ("It rhymes with ‘really,’" he keeps saying). His new assignment is to kidnap the younger brother of a federal judge who has the power to put some crooked New York-based mob boss away for life. Next thing you know, we're in a bargain-basement version of "Rain Man." The brother, Brian (Justin Bartha), is a brain-damaged kid, irritating but a sweetheart, and as obsessed with "Baywatch" as Dustin Hoffman was with BlueLight Specials.

Gigli takes Brian to his apartment for safekeeping. That's when Ricki (Lopez) - not her real name - shows up. She's a hot-chick hit woman and has been sent to baby-sit Gigli in case something goes wrong. Which has got to be the flimsiest excuse for a plot turn in recent memory. (But, then, things get flimsier. . . .)

As far back as Aristophanes, romantic comedies have needed obstacles to work. It used to be traditional notions of women's sexuality - no sex before marriage, etc. - were obstacle enough. But in the wake of birth control, women in the workplace, and a shifting social climate, that no longer works. Thus, the obstacles have become increasingly far-fetched - opposite coasts in "Sleepless in Seattle," or a wedding planner falling in love with the groom-to-be in Lopez's "The Wedding Planner." The roadblock in "Gigli" is that Ricki is a happy lesbian and even a sex god like, um, Gigli may not be able to sway her.

Please.

The movie is airless and inane. You feel suffocated by scenes that have no weight. For instance, Gigli and Ricki drop by his mother's (Lainie Kazan) for some spurious non-reason. The real reason, of course, is so director Martin Brest can have a scene in which Mom gives her blessings to lesbianism, yet encourages the idea that lesbians can go both ways when the right fella comes along. (All the while, Kazan eyes J. Lo like a whale courting a piece of plankton.) And whatever chemistry Lopez and Affleck have in real life curdles on-screen. Watching him try to distract her sexually while she's reading a book is embarrassing. Think: Winnie the Pooh coming on to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Lopez is the only one who gets out of this alive - and even so, she's pretty badly maimed after delivering a sexual-politics monologue while doing some sort of exercise/meditation that must've been culled from the Kama Sutra.

The script, written by Brest of "Scent of a Woman" infamy, gives her zilch, so Lopez falls back on her diva power, in all its tawny sexuality and ferocious me-ness. She gives you something to watch, even if it’s something you'd prefer not to see.

Christopher Walken stumbles through a small scene, trying to charge a superfluous character with some kind of oomph. And just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, Al Pacino shows up in a performance so ripely hammy you half expect him to turn into a pork rind.

Finally, there's Affleck. Matt's Ben. Gwyneth's Ben. Now, J. Lo’s Ben. Ben, who has the blockiest head in movies next to Ted Danson, James Van Der Beek, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster. The Affleck effect is akin to a black hole, sucking all the energy and life out of every scene he's in. Somewhere along an L.A. expressway, he's lost the dexterity, the self-deprecating sense of humor he had in earlier movies like "Chasing Amy" or even "Changing Lanes."

One recurring metaphor Gigli employs for the battle of the sexes, gay or straight, is that it all comes down to bulls (him) and cows (her). Maybe that explains why "Gigli" is such a pile of manure.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Chicago Tribune, Marc Caro

"Gigli" rhymes with "really," we're told twice in the movie of the same name, and it begins with a "zs" sound, as in "Zsa Zsa." It's the last name of Ben Affleck's dese-dem-dose thug character, Larry Gigli. People mispronounce it. He corrects them. Why he has a French-sounding last name is anyone's guess. We never hear doodley about his background. It's just one of those pointless, random details.

Put together enough pointless, random details, and you get "Gigli," a movie that's less incompetent than bewildering. How on earth did writer-director Martin Brest ("Meet Joe Black," "Scent of a Woman") envision this movie? As "Chasing Amy" meets "Rain Man" meets "Pulp Fiction"? Did someone think that sounded like a winning combination?

Mind you, we're not talking about the best parts of those movies -- just the most incongruous. Try this on: "Gigli" is the heartwarming, talky tale of a mob henchman who falls for the curvaceous lesbian hired to keep an eye on him while he guards the mentally challenged young guy he's kidnapped so his boss can extort a federal prosecutor.

When toughie Larry talks to his scruffy boss, Louis (Lenny Venito), or the older man he strong-arms by trapping inside a Laundromat dryer, every other word starts with an "f." Larry's introduction to his watchdog colleague Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) is a similarly foul-mouthed encounter as she reduces him from strutting peacock to roasted fowl.

But soon the would-be couple's conversations resemble rambling therapy sessions prescribed by Dr. Phil. Ricki points out that Larry seems sad. Larry just doesn't get that whole lesbian thing. Larry champions the penis. Ricki compares it to a big toe. And so on.

Then there's Brian (Justin Bartha), one of those mentally challenged young people that movies like to portray as innocent man-children rather than three-dimensional human beings. Bartha apparently has downloaded Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" performance; he's got the agitated muttering and blurted non sequiturs down cold. And when he smiles, Brest never fails to thrust the camera right up to his face. At such moments, the orchestral score becomes coated in so much syrup, it could open its own IHOP franchise.

Brian, who never seems to register that he's been kidnapped, keeps insisting that Larry take him to "the Baywatch"-- not the TV show but some actual place, because in Larry's mind, "I think that's where the sex is." Will Brian reach this destination? Will we be treated to the sight of him shaking his groove thang on a beach amid bikini-clad women? I wouldn't dream of spoiling the suspense.

Nor will I tell you what happens when Louis orders Larry and Ricki to chop off Brian's thumb as a signal that the kidnappers mean business. Such a development might trigger actual tension in a movie that traded in authentic emotions rather than blatantly manufactured ones. In "Gigli," which introduces its main characters as hard-bitten criminals and then spends the rest of the time trying to convince you how lovable they are, the device just feels cheap, like the famous National Lampoon "Buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog" cover played straight.

Not an unskilled writer, Brest has crafted some scenes that might play well if excised from the whole. In one, Ricki offers a literate, if typically raunchy, explanation of the difference between "sure" and "yes." In another, Christopher Walken provides the movie's first (and just about only) laughs as a police detective who pops into Larry's apartment with the air of someone who can't remember which body part itches. He suspects Larry had something to do with Brian's disappearance but would be content to blame the job on space aliens.

That's the last we see of the detective, which is odd given that anyone at Brian's institution should have been able to describe Larry. But Brest conveniently ignores real-life logic even as he expects us to accept "Gigli" as a serious character study.

You never lose awareness that you're watching something written -- preciously, most of the time -- as opposed to something that actually happened. Nary a note rings true.

Ricki's lesbianism is portrayed as nothing deeper than a preference for blonds over brunets. Larry's just not her type -- at least until the plot requires her to reconsider. The movie also suggests that Larry might be sexually confused, but this possibility is given such superficial treatment, it must be there strictly for laughs -- not that they ever come.

Affleck already grappled with love for a lesbian in "Chasing Amy." The difference here is a significant drop-off in IQ points. Affleck plays Larry Gigli like Edward Burns on stupid pills. Lopez is the more natural star here, thanks to her radiant smile and general ease in front of the camera, even if they rarely connect with a coherent character.

Al Pacino's hammy cameo (an almost redundant phrase by now) is indicative of what's wrong with "Gigli." Pacino's mob honcho is supposed to be menacing, but he's just full of gas -- he should watch Dustin Hoffman in "Confidence" for a far funnier, creepier spin on a similar role. You sense the actor and filmmaker straining to be … what's that annoying word? … edgy. The result is as convincing as Pat Boone covering NWA songs.

"Gigli" is a movie in which fish feast on brains that have been blown into an aquarium (the bullet would've shattered the tank, but never mind), a mentally challenged boy yearns for beach babes, and cutesy thugs argue over who's the bull and who's the cow in their relationship, even though the woman requests a sexual act by saying, "It's turkey time. Gobble, gobble."

She said it.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

New York Times, A.O. Scott

In "Gigli," Ben Affleck is Larry Gigli, a mob enforcer with a vintage Chevy Impala convertible, a closet full of vintage-style rayon shirts and a threadbare, thirdhand wiseguy accent. (Though he is a Los Angeles native, Larry's accent sounds as if he had been raised in the part of New Jersey that's just outside Boston.) Before we go any further, however, we should clear up the question of how to pronounce Larry's surname, and the title of the picture, in which Mr. Affleck is joined by his real-life fiancée, Jennifer Lopez. In places — especially the long denouement, set on a beach full of bikini-wearing extras — it is certainly jiggly. And audiences, at inappropriate moments, will find themselves helplessly giggly. But Larry's name is pronounced ZHEE-lee, or as he likes to say, "rhymes with really."

As in really, really silly, which is the kindest way to describe this hopelessly misconceived exercise in celebrity self-worship, which opens to nationwide ridicule today. "Gigli," directed by the historically competent Martin Brest ("Beverly Hills Cop," "Midnight Run," "Scent of a Woman"), may be a patchwork of ideas that have been put to better use in other movies — a glob of "Rain Man," a dash of "Prizzi's Honor," a schmear of "Chasing Amy" — but it has a special badness all its own. Shot in nondescript Los Angeles locations, including a generic apartment where much of the action takes place, the movie has a flat, featureless look more suitable to one of the low-budget, semiprofessional productions that Mr. Affleck helps sponsor through the "Project Greenlight" contest.

This one, however, cost quite a bit more: Mr. Affleck and Ms. Lopez's combined fees reportedly ran close to $25 million, and they earn their money by hogging as much screen time as possible and uttering some of the lamest dialogue ever committed to film. Ms. Lopez's character, an underworld "contractor" who calls herself Ricki, is dispatched to Larry's place because his boss, a "Sopranos" understudy named Louis (Lenny Venito), thinks he needs extra help watching over Brian (Justin Bartha), a mentally challenged young man Larry has kidnapped on Louis's orders.

The nature of Brian's disability is unclear — he refers to himself as "brain damaged," and Larry addresses him much less kindly — but he exhibits symptoms consistent with lovable-movie-disabled syndrome. He flaps and screeches, annoyingly at first, but soon settles into stammering cuteness as he chants along with his favorite hip-hop numbers and says funny things about sex.

As do Mr. Affleck and Ms. Lopez, though they are most likely aiming for suave, risqué wit, rather than the horselaughs their repartee provokes. That Ricki is a lesbian temporarily stymies Larry's fantasy of sexual conquest and leads to an extraordinary debate about the relative merits of the penis and the vagina. Ms. Lopez has the last word — not one that I can quote here — and it comes at the end of a speech about sea slugs, Mount Everest and the bottom of the ocean that she delivers while executing a series of yoga poses. This causes poor Larry to fall hopelessly in love with her and sets up their eventual bedroom consummation, a tasteful woman-on-top montage initiated by Ms. Lopez declaring that "it's turkey time."

Indeed it is. Buried in the slow, talky, inanities that the two stars exchange are some potentially interesting ideas about female sexual self-assertion and male surrender, but neither the actors nor the filmmakers have any notion about how to explore them. Ms. Lopez's brisk self-confidence has begun to seem like a limitation, and the way she modulates between steeliness and softness feels mechanical, a matter of arranging her face rather than of expressing any plausible motive or emotion. Mr. Affleck is a handsome face and a bad accent in search of a character; however you pronounce it, Gigli is not really anybody at all.

For relief, there are brief appearances by a few designated over-actors. In addition to Al Pacino (as Starkman, a big-time mobster from New York), Christopher Walken shows up as the only police officer who seems at all concerned that the younger brother of a federal prosecutor has been kidnapped. Lainie Kazan has a scene as Gigli's mother, who immediately senses that Ricki is a person of substance. One assumes they were all well compensated for their trouble.

In one scene Ricki takes on a group of ill-mannered ruffians who are making noise at a taco stand. Larry wants to beat them up, but she takes a more refined approach, sauntering over in her short denim skirt and lecturing them on their "people skills." She also threatens the apparent ringleader with a baroque martial-arts torture, which involves gouging out the eyes and also removing that part of the brain that stores visual information, so that the victim will not only be blind, but will also lose all memory of what he has seen. Having seen "Gigli," I must say that the idea has a certain appeal.

"Gigli" is rated R. (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has some violence, much obscenity and sexual references that go well beyond turkey talk.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

MSNBC, Christy Lemire

‘Gigli’ is really a bad movie
Unwatchable film would have gone straight to video if not for ‘Bennifer’

 “Gigli” — which spawned the phenomenon the gossip pages and celebrity magazines so lovingly refer to as “Bennifer” — is every bit as unwatchable as the deafening negative chatter would suggest. The film opens Friday.

THE DIALOGUE FROM writer-director Martin Brest is clunky, the film has serious tonal inconsistencies and at over two hours, it drags on way longer than it should.

Even making a little game of it, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell in love, stops being fun after a while.

Perhaps it’s when he says, in an attempt to seduce her, “I’m the bull, you’re the cow.”

Or when she beckons him into foreplay by lying back in bed and purring, “Gobble, gobble” — which could forever change the way you view your Thanksgiving turkey.

But as pop star vehicles go, “Gigli” isn’t as insufferable as, say, last year’s Madonna-Guy Ritchie debacle, “Swept Away.” It’s more on par with Mariah Carey’s “Glitter” and Britney Spears’ “Crossroads.”
       
If this were a movie starring two B-list actors, or two complete unknowns, it probably would have gone straight to video. After curious masochists and J.Lo fans check it out the first weekend, “Gigli” probably will have a drop-off in audience that rivals “The Hulk” — 70 percent — then go to video. And with the release next spring of Kevin Smith’s “Jersey Girl,” in which they also co-star, we can have this little conversation all over again.
       
For now, we have Affleck starring as incompetent mob thug Larry Gigli. (That’s pronounced JEE-lee, which rhymes with really, a running joke that isn’t particularly funny the first time.)
       
Gigli is asked to kidnap Brian (Justin Bartha), the mentally disabled younger brother of a federal prosecutor who’s going after a New York mobster (Al Pacino).
       
His boss, however, thinks he’s incapable of handling the assignment alone and sends in Ricki (Lopez), another contractor, to help him. Gigli is an anti-social lout who lives in a seedy apartment. Ricki is beautiful, grounded, enlightened. She quotes Sun Tzu — who could blame Gigli for falling for her? (And whether you like her or not, Lopez does have an undeniable presence.)
       
But Ricki is also a lesbian — so it makes absolutely no sense when she falls for him, too, although they have all the obligatory banter and alleged sexual tension required of a romantic comedy. (And it’s only a romantic comedy sometimes. Other times, it aims to be an edgy action-crime movie; still other times, it aspires for gag-inducing poignancy.)
       
Apparently, the only force that binds them is the fact that they both feel squeamish about cutting off Brian’s thumb and mailing it to his prosecutor brother. Instead, they break into a morgue and saw the thumb off a corpse using a plastic knife, while Brian — who has an unexplained penchant for old-school rap — sings Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”
       
It’s also incredibly misinformed to suggest that Ricki can be “converted” to heterosexuality — that a man’s love is all she really needed to allay any confusion about all that silly lesbian stuff.
       
So what you have here is “Rain Man” meets “Chasing Amy” — which is apropos, since the latter is a 1997 Kevin Smith movie in which Affleck also starred as a guy who falls for a lesbian. Instead of counting matches and obsessing about “The People’s Court” like Dustin Hoffman’s “Rain Man” character, Brian counts sunflower seeds and obsesses over going to “the Baywatch.”
       
Cameos from Pacino, Christopher Walken as a detective and Lainie Kazan as Gigli’s mother don’t help, either.
       
Did they owe someone a favor? What are they doing here? Pacino won his one and only Oscar with Brest for 1992’s “Scent of a Woman,” but couldn’t he have just thanked the director instead?
       
Instead, we get to see Pacino shoot someone in the head, then watch as fish in a nearby aquarium snack on splattered drops of the victim’s blood.
       
HOO-HAH!!

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis

'Gigli's' faults: more than a couple
This Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez vehicle would stink even without its big-ticket stars.

Nearly as unwatchable as it is unpronounceable, the gangster comedy "Gigli" arrives in theaters amid a public relations tempest. As anyone within reach of the worldwide flack-net knows, the film stars real-life paramours Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, who, stung by bad publicity about the feature, have vowed never to work with each other again. First, though, the pair should reconsider working with anyone who thought well of a movie hinged on jokes about the disabled, switch-hitting lesbians, and the sight of a dead man's brain splattered across an aquarium.

So forget the hype — this movie would stink even without its big-ticket stars, which isn't to say that either is entirely blameless. Affleck plays a low-level Los Angeles hood whose surname rhymes with "really" and Lopez plays Ricki, an underworld contractor brought in to ensure that he doesn't screw up a job. Gigli's immediate boss, Louis (Lenny Venito), has ordered his reluctant minion to kidnap the mentally handicapped Brian (newcomer Justin Bartha), the young brother of a federal prosecutor who's causing them business trouble. After luring the kid out of his group home, Gigli retreats to his bachelor's pad, whereupon he, Brian and Ricki become the spurious misfit family so beloved of contemporary Hollywood while the movie grinds to a thudding stop.

For the next 40 minutes or so, Gigli and Ricki swap stale banter as the actors feign animosity and Bartha sneaks off with the movie by channeling Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" shtick. Throughout the strained repartee, the jokes keep coming and bombing, but it's not as if the movie is devoid of humor. It's fairly risible when Ricki quotes Sun Tzu by heart and equally gag-worthy when, without a shred of conviction, she declares she's a lesbian just before snuggling in bed next to Gigli. A protracted scene in which the camera and Gigli both leer at Ricki's wobbly yoga moves as she sings the praises of the female anatomy has irrefutable camp value, as does an inevitable seduction capped by the memorable line "it's turkey time — gobble, gobble." Yes, it certainly is.

After a well-regarded student movie and a couple of misses, Brest hit it big as a director by staying out of Eddie Murphy's way in "Beverly Hills Cop." He subsequently scored with "Midnight Run," which he followed with the more serious "Scent of a Woman" and "Meet Joe Black," both studio-slick and strictly impersonal. The new film marks a return to a more overtly comic register for Brest — this is the first movie he's taken a writing credit on since his 1979 caper "Going in Style" — which, in keeping with movie-comedy fashion, mostly involve forced stabs at ostensible "politically incorrect" waggery. The insults about Brian being a "half-wit" are crudely unfunny and made all the more painful by Brest's steady attempts to reduce his stings with sentimentalism.

Unlike the Farrelly brothers, Brest doesn't embrace his bad taste — he flees from it. Every time Gigli hurls another insult at Brian, Brest and his team cue up a syrupy riff just to let us know that no one on board really thinks the kid is stupid. The frantic backpedaling seems a bid to put the thug into a better light, but it doesn't. Gigli weighs in as such an insufferable lunkhead that it's difficult to think of an actor who could pull him off without shifting the whole movie into pure caricature. A passable actor but a lousy star — the bigger the movie, the worse he comes across — Affleck doesn't have the chops or the charm to maneuver around (or past) bad material, and unlike his co-star he can't coast on looks alone.

If Lopez fares somewhat better it's only because her lines aren't as egregious and her beauty affords its own pleasurable dividends. She's as badly miscast as her sapphic warrior is ludicrously conceived, but because her well-manicured persona carries so much extra-added value — Puffy! The Rump! Ben and Jen! — Lopez ends up being a welcome distraction, a voluptuary of attractions. That's especially true once the characters hit the street and the story spirals ever further south. Much like Christopher Walken and Al Pacino, both of whom stop by for a pair of resplendently eccentric, too-brief appearances, Lopez proves her big-screen worth mainly by making you forget the movie. When you're this fabulous it just doesn't matter if you're any good.

Times guidelines: The language is raw, the sex is tame and the violence certainly isn't brief.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

East Bay Express, Luke Y. Thompson

J. Lowest
Jen and Ben get Gigli, and why not? They just stole our $10.50

For a few minutes, at least, things don't look so bad. Watching Ben Affleck swagger around as the thuggish title character of Gigli ("Rhymes with really," he tells us, twice) is amusing for a bit. He is eminently qualified for the role, actually -- that of a low-level hood pretending to be more important and talented than he truly is.

Gigli gets assigned to kidnap a "psychologically challenged" youngster, brother of a prosecutor who's making trouble for a New York mobster. Said youngster, Brian (newcomer Justin Bartha), has an affliction that seems to be a vague amalgamation of autism, Tourette's, and white-rapper syndrome (yes, he periodically gives lisping shout-outs to his homies, and recites '90s rap hits verbatim), all of which conveniently go into remission whenever the plot calls for it. Anyway, his initial reaction to Affleck is to repeatedly call him stupid and swear at him, which at least gives us one character to identify with for a while. Then you notice that Bartha doesn't look to have studied any actual handicapped people in creating his character -- just Rain Man, and possibly Malibu's Most Wanted.

From there, however, the plot rests upon a number of suppositions only slightly less convincing than the one writer-director Martin Brest (helmsman of the similarly endless-seeming star vanity projects Scent of a Woman and Meet Joe Black) apparently made about Affleck being a skilled thespian. To wit: One must suppose that the best way to get a hired goon to do his job correctly is to send over a scantily clad hot lesbian bearing the stripperesque pseudonym of "Ricki" (Jennifer Lopez) to do seminude yoga. Oh yeah, that'll keep Mr. Gigli focused on the job at hand. It helps if this woman is neither tough nor intimidating, but rather issues empty threats from time to time. It goes without saying that it's hard to be scared of mobsters stupid enough to hire "J. Lo" and "B. Af" when, presumably, there must be at least one thug for hire in all of Los Angeles who looks like, say, Danny Trejo.

It's also a given here, much as it is in Danish cinema these days, that the mentally retarded are all noble, innocent beings who can melt the hearts of lowlifes with their mere presence. Additionally, sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice that can be transcended by Affleck simply because he has a hidden feminine side (Indeed, that's a plot point). If converting lesbians isn't sufficiently impressive, how about his ability to cure serious mental problems simply by offering a pointer or two on how to pick up chicks?

Before Gigli's two hours are up, you will also hear Lopez deliver a lengthy monologue about eye-gouging, see Lainie Kazan's ass cheeks and cleavage (she's the mom from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and plays Gigli's bisexual mom here), hear Lopez describing Affleck's penis, hear Bartha talk about ejaculation, see Affleck try to cut off a human thumb with a plastic knife, and watch fish devour bloody bits of brain. Affleck and Lopez also participate in the worst sex scene ever, but you knew that was inevitable, after what feels like an endless courtship. How exactly are we supposed to believe these two are hardened criminals, when they're making cutesy eyes at one another from the get-go? She threatens to kick his ass early in the game, but never gives any legitimate indication that she's capable of such a feat.

While you're trying to tie yourself a noose out of Red Vines (or Twizzlers, depending on the theater), you may be momentarily distracted by Christopher Walken and Al Pacino getting one scene apiece in an attempt to win back your attention. It's a stalling tactic that works only until you realize that once each scene is over, the movie's going to go back to the same old way it was before.

It wasn't supposed to like this. Remember back when Ben and Jen seemed like such hot upcoming prospects? Ben was the one Kevin Smith protégé who looked like he could go all the way to the top with his blend of sensitivity and humor, and Jennifer was the perfect mix of beauty and toughness in Out of Sight and Money Train (hell, I'll even throw Anaconda in there). So what happened? Oh, right: He got a thoroughly undeserved screenwriting Oscar, and she decided that playing Selena wasn't enough of a diva fix. Both signed on for Gigli, became Hollywood's power couple, and somehow have managed to exhaust their novelty with the media right about now, as the film's finally being released.

Though the two leads, laughably referred to as "icons" in the press notes, became a couple during the course of filming, the material here is just too easy to make fun of in the context of their subsequent relationship. So let's go for it: One of Jennifer's first lines to Ben is "I'll be in and out before you know it, I promise, I'll just leave a faint scent." Think that was also uttered the night of their first date? Later, she opines, "I done some bad things, but I didn't sign onto this to be a real street thug." Ask ex-beau P. Diddy where she may have found her motivation on that one.

So how bad, in the final analysis, is Gigli? The best that can be said about it here is that it doesn't beat out The Ladies Man as the most abrasively awful film of the past five years, nor does it top Battlefield Earth for sheer misguided lunacy, though whoever chose to greenlight a film about a mobster babysitting a retarded youngster who helps him to "convert" a lesbian really should be fired. Affleck's acting is often cardboard enough to be amusing, but Lopez delivers what may be the worst performance of her entire career (including, yes, The Wedding Planner), looking in every scene like she's just waiting for the last take so she can go home. Twice she delivers speeches supposed to make her look tough as nails; both times, we have to wonder how the other characters onscreen could possibly be convinced. A recent episode of South Park suggested that a fourth-grader's hand puppet could turn in a better performance than Ms. Lopez, and in the case of Gigli, it's hard to argue.

[fnordboy]

I would post a review but their must be none left at this point

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Oh, come on - I'm sure that more than six people in the entire world wrote reviews for this movie! Research, man - learn to love it!

[fnordboy]

Oh, come on - I'm sure that more than six people in the entire world wrote reviews for this movie! Research, man - learn to love it!

Wait but that would imply more than 6 people went to see it....the math just doesn't work out

[Natasha (candygirl)]

The Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret A. McGurk

'Gigli' gets more wrong than right
Ben Affleck-J.Lo project bottoms out with across-the-board inept filmmaking

There are so many things wrong with Gigli that you might be surprised to hear its worst fault is sheer tedium.

For a movie equipped with thugs, guns, kidnapping, murder, corpse abuse, bikini-clad dancers, attempted suicide, sex and massive quantities of talk about sex, plus cameos from Chrisopher Walken and Al Pacino - not to mention the famous Jennifer Lopez backside - this stinker is one dull hunk of celluloid.

For the record, here's the story: Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck), a dim-bulb stooge for a low-level gangster, is sent to kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a federal prosecutor, with the aim of forcing the feds to drop the case against a bigger gangster.

Gigli is so unreliable that another "contractor" named Ricki (Lopez) is sent to keep an eye on him. She's a lesbian. He converts her, sort of.

(By the way, Gigli is pronounced "zhee-lee," not "jiggly." There's a smidgen of a joke about it in the movie, but it's not funny.)

Writer-director Martin Brest (Midnight Run, Scent of A Woman) seems to have lost his marbles completely here. Maybe it's not his fault; the movie has been dogged by rumors of disastrous screenings, conflicts, delays, reshoots, re-edits, even a near-fistfight between Brest and a studio boss.

Whatever the reason, Gigli stutters and flops and flounders around in a sludge of would-be comedy, action and pathos. Tone, pacing and character devlopment are flat out inept. The mood is about as thrilling as the waiting line in an unemployment office.

And the dialogue - sweet, screaming Jehosephat, it's awful.

It sounds like Brest wants to prove that Guys and Dolls would have been better if only Damon Runyon had the guts to use lots of filthy, stupid and offensive language.

For instance, one of those rampaging rumors proves horrifyingly true - Lopez does indeed utter the single worst seduction line in the history of moving pictures. It's so painful I can't even make myself type it, much less explain what it means.

On the upside, I guess, the line will provide a bounty of hilarity for late-night entertainers and pajama-party video-watchers.

There are hints buried in Gigli that these folks really were trying to make a good movie. Lopez and Affleck - who often seems to be on the brink of tears - put a lot of effort into their awkward banter.

Justin Bartha works equally hard to portray the disabled young man (who suffers, apparently, from brain damage, austism and Tourette's Syndrome simultaneously). Walken and Laine Kazan are reliably watchable in tiny roles, even if their characters seem to be in some other movie than Affleck and Lopez.

Fans of the tabloid twosome, you've been warned: Gigli just might send you shrieking back to the Brad-and-Jen club.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Oh, come on - I'm sure that more than six people in the entire world wrote reviews for this movie! Research, man - learn to love it!

Wait but that would imply more than 6 people went to see it....the math just doesn't work out

Well, they get paid to see crap like this and write about it. Let's see how many people are willing to pay to see it!

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Would you believe there is a critic (Ebert of Siskel & Ebert, no less) who doesn't hate this movie? He gave it two and a half stars!

Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are in love and plan to get married, as you already know unless you are sealed off from all media, in which case you are not reading this review, so put it down. Because they are a famous couple, starring in a movie romance, we expect something conventional and predictable and that is not what we get from "Gigli." The movie tries to do something different, thoughtful, and a little daring with their relationship, and although it doesn't quite work, maybe the movie is worth seeing for some scenes that are really very good.

Consider the matching monologues. They've gotten into an argument over the necessity of the penis, which she, as a lesbian, feels is an inferior device for delivering sexual pleasure. He delivers an extended lecture on the use, necessity and perfect design of the appendage. It is a rather amazing speech, the sort of thing some moviegoers are probably going to want to memorize. Then she responds. She is backlit, dressed in skintight workout clothes, doing yoga, and she continues to stretch and extend and bend and pose as she responds with her speech in praise of the vagina. When she is finished, Reader, the vagina has won, hands down. It is so rare to find dialogue of such originality and wit, so well written, that even though we know the exchange basically involves actors showing off, they do it so well, we let them.

Affleck plays Larry Gigli, rhymes with "Geely," and one wonders, learning that they rejected several earlier titles for the movie, which ones could have been worse than this. He's an errand boy for a tough-talking Los Angeles mobster named Louis (Lenny Venito). Louis wants to do a favor for a New York mob boss, and orders Gigli to kidnap the mentally retarded brother of a federal prosecutor. Gigli does, walking out of a care facility with Brian (Justin Bartha), who has Rain Man's syndrome. He takes him home, there is a knock on the door, and he meets Ricki (Lopez), who is also a mob enforcer. Louis is taking no chances and has assigned both of them to guard the boy.

This is the set-up for an obvious plot that the movie, written by director Martin Brest, wisely avoids. Instead of falling in love and psychically adopting Brian, or (alternate cliche) fighting all the time, Gigli and Ricki get to like each other very, very much, even though she makes it perfectly clear that she is a lesbian. So resolute is the movie in its idea of her character that she doesn't even cave in and have a conversion experience, which is what we're expecting, but remains a lesbian--as indeed, as a good lesbian, she should.

Their conversations take on a rather desperate quality, since Gigli feels lust and love, and she feels strong affection. What transpires between them, and whether they ever put their theories about genitalia through a field test, I will not reveal. Meanwhile, Brian behaves like a well-rehearsed Movie Retarded Person, does or doesn't do whatever the script requires, and conveniently disappears into his room when he is not needed.

Lopez and Affleck are sweet and appealing in their performances; the buzz said they didn't have chemistry, but the buzz was wrong. What they don't have is conviction. There is no way these two are killers for the mob. They don't have the disposition for it. And consider this: If you had kidnapped the highly recognizable Rain Man brother of a top federal prosecutor, would you drive him all over Los Angeles in a convertible with the top down, and take him to restaurants and malls?

So the crime plot is completely unconvincing. It does, however, open the door for the movie's collection of inspired supporting performances. Christopher Walken, as a cop who knows Gigli, walks into his apartment and does five minutes of Walkenizing and the audience eats up every second. Lainie Kazan, as Gigli's mother, sizes up Ricky instantly, likes her, learns she is a lesbian, chucks her under the chin and says, "But you've been with guys, right?" Then she talks about her own Highly Experimental youth, while solidifying her position as the ethnic mother of choice in modern American movies. And then toward the end, Starkman, the mob boss from New York, arrives, and is played in a cameo by Al Pacino--who makes the journey from extravagant dopiness to chilling intimidation faster and better than anyone else I can think of.

So the movie doesn't work. The ending especially doesn't work, and what's worse, it doesn't work for a long time, because it fails to work for minute after minute, and includes dialogue which is almost entirely unnecessary. But there is good stuff here. Affleck and Lopez create lovely characters, even if they're not the ones they're allegedly playing, and the supporting performances and a lot of the dialogue is wonderful. It's just that there's too much time between the good scenes. Too much repetitive dialogue. Too many soulful looks. Behavior we can't believe. I wonder what would happen if you sweated 15 minutes out of this movie. Maybe it would work. The materials are there.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Rolling Stone, Peter Travers

e only people likely to get a kick out of Gigli -- the first screen teaming of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez -- are Madonna and her director hubby Guy Ritchie. Finally there's a movie as jaw-droppingly awful as their Swept Away. The stars display zip chemistry, but seem to find themselves adorable. They're so taken with each other they don't need an audience. Good thing, because they're not going to get one, not with this swill.

Affleck, in way over his head, plays Larry Gigli, a dim bulb of a mob enforcer. Gigli (it's pronounced jeel-ly but everyone gets it wrong) has kidnapped mental patient Brian (Justin Bartha, doing Rain Man), the kid brother of a federal prosecutor, to keep mob boss Starkman (Al Pacino in an overwrought cameo) from going to jail. Don't ask how. Know only that mob cutie Ricki (Lopez), a lesbian with a suicidal girlfriend, has been sent in to make sure Gigli doesn't screw up. Lopez treats the role like a photo shoot, doing yoga exercises in Gigli's apartment and ruminating on why it's more erotic to kiss a vagina than a penis.

Writer-director Martin Brest, who should have learned from his last fiasco, Meet Joe Black, instead provides more excruciating dialogue and slack pacing. Christopher Walken gets laughs as a nutso cop, but the focus soon switiches to what motivates Ricki to spread her legs and tell Gigli to, and I quote, "gobble-gobble." Careers have been crushed by less. Test audiences reportedly balked at the film's happy ending and wanted Gigli and Ricki to die bloody deaths. And they say critics are harsh.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

San Francico Chronicle, Mick LaSalle

'Gigli' not even good for a giggle
Affleck, Lopez dullest onscreen duo of year

"Gigli" doesn't need a review; it needs an inquest. The movie is dead on arrival. Who or what killed it?

There are multiple suspects: Was it the endless prattle? The ludicrously inappropriate soundtrack? The funereal pacing? The uneasy mix of vulgarity and cheap sentiment? The almost nonexistent story? The resounding miscasting of Ben Affleck as a tough guy and Jennifer Lopez as a woman who'd actually speak to him? Or the bad, bad, bad, bad writing? The answer: This is one of those "Murder on the Orient Express" situations, in which all the suspects are guilty. The result is the most thoroughly joyless and inept film of the year, and one of the worst of the decade.

We're talking about a disaster, and not of the fun "Showgirls" variety, either. "Gigli" is 124 minutes long, almost a marathon by romantic-comedy standards. Yet if all the apparently irrelevant, tiresome and flat-out painful moments were cut, the film would consist entirely of two scenes -- one featuring a brief appearance by Christopher Walken as a (spooky) police detective and another with Al Pacino as a (screaming) crime boss. Even those scenes are nonsensical, but the bravura turns of the veteran actors at least provide temporary distraction.

"Gigli" seems intended to be a tale of redemption. Affleck plays the title character, a strong-arm mob guy, who finds a path out of his life of loneliness and violence when he falls in love with Ricki, a beautiful lesbian mob contractor, played by Lopez. Of course, to make this transition at all meaningful, we have to believe two things: 1) that this fellow really has lived a nasty life and 2) that he's worth redeeming.

But Affleck's essence is too good-natured for us to believe him as a cruel customer, and, in fact, the movie starts by assuring us that he's basically a nice guy. So, really, there's nowhere for the character to go. Plus, as written, Gigli is such a dumbbell -- and Affleck is so distressingly convincing as a dumbbell -- that watching his character evolve is like watching mold grow.

Gigli is assigned to kidnap the brain-damaged younger brother of a federal prosecutor -- newcomer Justin Bartha, in a grotesque, on-again off-again parody of mental affliction. Because Gigli's boss isn't sure Gigli is up to the job, he partners him with Ricki, and soon the three are living together in Gigli's apartment, as a kind of mock family. Once that setup is in place, the story grinds to a halt, and what follows is about 90 minutes of a very stupid hero trying to talk a very uninterested heroine into sex.

That Lopez survives "Gigli" (barely, but she does) is due to the fact that she keeps smiling at Affleck indulgently, as though he were a big fool, and her smile seems to extend to the film as a whole. Ricki is too cool for Gigli, just as Lopez is too cool for this movie. I just hope that Lopez doesn't see "Gigli" and decide that she's too cool for Affleck, too. Watching the two of them together -- they reportedly fell in love during the making of the film -- I was reminded of an image: two people, in big winter coats, kissing passionately, feeling beautiful and not realizing that they look as clumsy as turtles. There are advantages that civilians have over movie stars, and a big one is not having to look at ourselves.

Director Martin Brest ("Scent of a Woman") also wrote the screenplay, though it's hard to fathom that the unrelenting, puerile sex talk found here --

dorm-room-like disquisitions on the relative attractiveness of the male and female organs, and the words "gobble, gobble, gobble" as an amorous invitation -- could be the product of a mature imagination.

But then, who knows? In "Gigli," when the mentally challenged teenager says he loves "Baywatch" because "that's where the sex is," sentimental violins play on the soundtrack. And almost every time Gigli refers to his penis, a soulful acoustic guitar is heard -- the penis theme, as it were. This is a fairly demented film, but not nearly demented enough to be interesting.
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Advisory: This film contains sexual situations, violence and nonstop coarse language.